Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Chløë Black - New Waves

Wikipedia suggests that musicologists define pop as having a number of characteristics, one of which is a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments. When a new artist breaks through with something a little unique and special you’ll inevitably get a slew of similar artists following in their path. It’s probably why right now there’s a lot of white bearded men who have suddenly discovered sexy r’n’b and why there’s quite a few female singers out there sounding a little bit like either Lorde, Ellie Goulding or Lana Del Rey. This isn’t a criticism on our part of those artists, because let’s face it, much of progressive art, be it music, painting, dance or architecture is fundamentally rubbish – but out of the crap, somewhere something incredible will also be born.So let’s back track to Lana Del Rey. Yesterday we posted Zella Day’s new tune Hypnotic and immediately compared it to Lana. Today we’re introducing Chløë Black and once again making that comparison. The melody, the vocal intonation and even the subject material (the 27 Club being a term that refers to a number of musicians who died at that age from either suicide or alcohol / drug abuse) could easily be something that we can imagine Lana performing. After all she alluded to the idea of dying young in this interview with the Guardian and now Chløë is doing the same. “Joplin, heroin, cocaine, Cobain, raise my Hendricks to Jimi no one gets old in this city,” she sings and we’re won over with the gin and rock star reference, the hint of faded glamour and a vocal that once you suck in you find is delivered with more soul and passion than Lana could ever muster. We’ve no idea what other material she has, or if she can sing this well live, but if she can, we could have a star on our hands. Incidentally, what’s happened to another Chlöe - Chlöe Howl? Are we ever going to get an album from her?Chløë Black - 27 Club